THAT CERTAIN SOMETHING
(C)1995 Alan M. Schwartz
I knew there was something uncommon about Hannay soon after I
walked through her door. One whole wall of Ms. Anholonomy's
parlor glittered with unbroken grey metallic sheen. Spangled
light careened off uncountable oddly-shaped inch tiles, dispersed
by tenth millimeter facets, and was shaped by the greater pattern
into shifting fivefold spicules of burnished illumination.
It was seemingly absurd. No Euclidian plane may be tessellated
with fivefold symmetry, not by tiles of a single shape. I drew
closer and recognized the kites and darts of a Penrose tiling.
They snuggled together, the convex parallelopiped kites nestling
into the dented darts to create a pseudo-fivefold symmetry
perfectly overlaying the zero curvature surface as an ungapped
blanket. Global regularity emerged from local irregularity.
What was Hannay's angle? It was a two-space pun. Anholonomy
is a force of nature!
Those myriad facets on each tile's face, all crossing at right
angles, were a wonder to behold. The ordered reflectance was an
astounding simulacrum of the Widmanstatten pattern. I imagined
eons over which genuine interdigitated kamacite and taenite
slowly grow within zero-g molten nickel-iron masses, undistorted
by any but the weakest of gravity's seductive embraces. Metallic
meteorites are sectioned and etched to disclose their authentic
origin. No Earthly process - limited by evanescent human lives
and dirtied by gravity - can produce such a motif. An artisan
had invested remarkable exertions. No two tiles were identical,
though all were consistent, as if slabs had been sequentially
sliced from a single huge crystalline body, diced, and the tiles
thereafter crafted to perfect shape. Had it been real, that
metallic panel would fetch a dozen times its weight in gold.
I had a pocket compass. I ran it along the wall, tracing
gossamer magnetic lines of force, quantum mechanical threads
passing through aligned unpaired electron spins sequestered
within the 3d-orbitals of each metal atom. As the Widmanstatten
pattern dictated atomic alignment and the Penrose tiling enforced
macroscopic order, so the summed magnetic force field bent to the
mandate of the assembled wall. How clever, how diabolic, how
perfect, how ironic was her interior decoration?
Spins are anti-paired in their lowest energy state, like two
magnets glued together by their opposed north and south poles
touching. Consider a triangle of spins. The first is oriented
up or down, the second is anti-oriented down or up, and the third
one points...? This is called spin frustration, and it gives
rise to bizarre quantum mechanical nuances beyond the discrete
computational or even symbolic encapsulations of our most
profound scholars. Maxwell's Equations embody strong opinions
about successful closure, hence magnetic monopoles' absence
within our universe.
I ran my compass in a wide loop. The wall exhibited fivefold
global symmetry, eh? What would happen when my compass returned
to its starting point, forced to point both north and south
simultaneously? Would the universe disappear lest it be caught
in an irresolvable conundrum of its own making?
No, I did. The wall bloated in a most peculiar way. Aharonov,
Bohm, and Casher stared up from Hell, giggling. The wall
relaxed. Closure was complete. Sometimes life is the berries.
Face it; sometimes it ain't. I was Elsewhere.
The Middle Ages hosted a deluge of consecrated muddle. Every
manner of divinity appeared everywhere to everyone sufficiently
addled or voracious to ply the crowd. The 20th Century suffers a
paucity of holy materialization given videotape and science,
though the occasional Christ does appear browned onto a taco,
along with Elvis. Today we enjoy UFOs and the ubiquitous huge-
eyed, large-headed, weak-jawed, five-fingered, and otherwise
dainty alien entity. What gods we abandon our own fervid baby
hallucinations restore.
Their eyes were set way too far up upon their arching convex
foreheads, and too far apart, facing straight forward in shallow
depressions. Their noses were vestigial snouts, moist and black,
perched upon thick, brownish skin. Their ears were small
acoustic horns, also set high in the black and greying pelts of
their heads. Their jaws and teeth hinted carnivorous ancestors.
Each hand sprouted a pair of asymmetric thumbs separated by a
span of four fingers - toolmakers. Two meter gracile forms were
abundant, whispering among themselves. Shorter more robust forms
stood closer. Their heavy fingers were like hydraulic clamps,
the upper surfaces heavily calloused and sprouting stout,
superficial thorns. I suspected some ancient avatar stirred his
species' evolution, creating castes suited to the task, and to
tasks outside my knowing.
They were displeased and pleased. The foreign animal began to
scream, finally bequeathing godspeed to residual microbial
appetites.